


As The World Falls Down

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alex Reagan: Destroyer of Worlds, Dream Sequence--or is it?, Elements of Horror, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: Alex opens her eyes.She could swear she only closed them for a moment. Only to rest the burning ache of countless nights with little to no sleep.She closed them in the safety of her office. With the door shut and a sign written in bold Sharpie:Under Strict Deadlines. Do Not Disturb.When she opens her eyes, however, she is decidedly not in her office.No, not her office, but a ballroom.





	As The World Falls Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [E_Salvatore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/gifts).



> Blatantly inspired by the ballroom scene in _Labyrinth_ , down to the title of the fic.

Alex opens her eyes.

She could swear she only closed them for a moment. Only to rest the burning ache of countless nights with little to no sleep.

She closed them in the safety of her office. With the door shut and a sign written in bold Sharpie: **Under Strict Deadlines. Do Not Disturb.**

When she opens her eyes, however, she is decidedly not in her office.

No, not her office, but a ballroom.

“How in the hell?” she asks.

A couple, both dressed in immense, sparkling ball gowns, twirl by, giggling at Alex as they go.

Another couple waltz toward her. Both are wearing masks—horrible, awful masks—completely at odds with the delighted smiles on their faces—their _real_ faces. Or is any part of either face real? Are they wearing masks at all? Could both dancers be nothing but driftwood carved into the facsimile of a human being?

Both laugh and this time, Alex catches something darker underneath it.

They’re mocking her.

Alex frowns. She steps forward, only to be jostled by another couple. And another. Two men in matching grinning masks—masks?—dip and bow, blocking her when she takes another step.

She turns and turns, but what was once a nearly empty room is now crowded. The guests laugh and tease her as she tries to escape, dancing toward her, into her, but Alex pushes through, jostling and grappling with those in her way, until she finally bursts through the throng.

She bends at the waist, taking huge, gulping breaths.

Outside the bubble of dancers, Alex finds herself in a courtyard.

She could swear it was the middle of the afternoon when she closed her eyes, but the sky is an inky black, dotted with stars twinkling overhead. A chill in the air bites at her bare arms and Alex notices for the first time she is not wearing the T-shirt, jeans, and moth-eaten sweater she put on that morning. She’s wearing a ball gown, not unlike those worn by the dancers. Enormous and much too opulent, a waterfall of fabric the color of twilight, accented with mother-of-pearl and starlight silver.

“What the—?”

Alex moves to the railing. She places her hands on the cool marble and lifts herself up onto her tiptoes, to see the sprawling gardens just beneath. Beyond the garden is a maze, stretching into the horizon. The stone walls tower, unscalable. 

Alex blinks and shakes her head. The maze has shifted. Or is it simply a trick of her mind, after staring so hard at the labyrinth? Could she have imagined it, an illusion created by the mica glittering under the full moon?

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The man’s voice is deep, yet familiar. Alex turns to see a tall figure standing a few paces away. He wears a tuxedo, the color of an overcast sky, and a devilish mask. His mouth twists, turning up on one side in a wry smile.

Alex breathes a sigh of relief. His face is human. His mask is just that. A mask.

“Who are you?” Alex asks.

The man tilts his head. His smile pulls wider, as if she’s just asked him to share a secret he has no intention of revealing. He holds out his hand, offering it to Alex for her to take.

Alex raises her hand. She looks between it and his, uncertain.

The man laughs, low and breathy. He lowers his hand and places both behind his back. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not—I only meant—I’m kind of lost. I was in my office, but now I’m here and I’m not really sure where _here_ actually is. I don’t even know how I got here. You’re the first semi-friendly face I’ve met. Can you—can you help me? I really need to get home.”

He tilts his head again. “Only semi-friendly?”

Alex opens her mouth, ready to apologize, when she realizes he’s teasing her. “It’s hard to say fully-friendly when I can only see half your face.”

“Ah,” he says. He reaches up behind him and pulls at the ribbon tying the mask in place. Slowly, carefully, he removes it.

Alex gasps. She takes a step backward in surprise. “Dr. Strand?”

It’s Strand, but it isn’t. His blue eyes are old, much older than his fifty-eight years. Electricity arcs behind them, a power Alex has never seen before. His face is marked by what look to be tattoos, but what Alex somehow knows to be a natural part of his skin.

Not-Strand grins and the moonlight catches on one of his incisors. He sweeps out an arm and bows low.

“What have you done with Strand?”

“I have done nothing. Your Dr. Strand is safe. For now.”

Alex’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean? For now?”

Not-Strand’s voice is as cool as the air around them. It sends shivers down her spine. “You know what is coming, Lady Alex. What you’ve started.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t start anything.”

“No? You poked your human nose into business not concerning you. You gave Him a voice. You opened the Door between worlds.”

“Worlds?” Alex asks. “What worlds? None of this is real. It’s all just cultists who have—“ Alex thinks of Maddie, hanging by her neck from the rafters. She thinks of the missing Hochman family. She thinks of a security team, armed with guns. She thinks of Simon Reese, Keith Dabbic, and most importantly, Amalia Chenkova. “Who have taken their beliefs too far.”

Not-Strand looks down at her, like she’s nothing but a nuisance. Like she’s a small, insignificant animal playing at his feet.

Seeing that expression on Strand’s face—even a mimicry of it—hurts. 

“You know nothing of which you speak, journalist. You are the reason my world crumbles. You are the reason several others have already fallen. To Darkness, to Chaos. He will devour everything in his path. Until nothing is left.”

Alex shakes her head. “This is insane. You’re insane.”

Even as she says it, however, she knows his words to be true. If she focuses, truly focuses, she can see where the edges of this world are greyed, fuzzy.

Not-Strand follows her gaze and frowns. He closes his eyes and the world reshapes, once more crisp and clear.

Not-Strand stumbles, but catches himself before he can fall. His electric eyes are dulled, as if he’d taken the grey into himself. His skin is gaunt, stretched over his skeleton like a man starved.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

“My world will not survive this, Lady Alex. I can only prolong the inevitable.”

Alex opens her mouth, but stops when he holds up a hand. The tips of his fingers are translucent.

He glares at his digits until they solidify, then sways where he stands. “You must stop Him. You _must_. If not to save my world, but that of your own. And, perhaps, those of which the Darkness has not yet cast His shadow.”

“How? How can I stop it? How can I—?”

How can she save everyone? How can she, a reporter for Pacific Northwest Stories, be expected to stop something capable of devouring entire worlds?

“I never wanted any of this to happen,” she says. “I only wanted—“

“A story,” Not-Strand finishes. He smiles and behind it is pain the likes Alex has never experienced.

He turns away from her and stares out into the night sky. Stars wink and then disappear, one by one. He sighs and shakes himself. “All stories must end, Lady Alex. And we have run out of time for this one.”

He offers her his hand again. “Will you allow me this last dance?”

Alex takes his hand. He tugs her close, holding her in his arms. He hums, something soft and low, something as haunting as it is ethereal, as they sway.

The ground shakes beneath their feet. Alex tries to pull away, but Not-Strand shushes her. He continues their dance as the laughter of the other dancers turns to screams.

“The stitching has come unraveled,” Not-Strand says. 

Beneath her hands, she can feel him crumbling away, like stone turned to dust.

“No,” she says.

“May your story have a happy ending, Lady Alex.”

The edges of her vision tunnel. But the shadow is not one produced by the play of light. It is an all consuming, all destroying darkness. It swallows everything. Without warning. Without fanfare. Until Alex loses her grip on the hand of the being disguised as Strand. Until she’s falling amongst the debris yet to be eaten away, amongst the dancers who have not yet rotted into nothingness.

Alex opens her eyes.


End file.
